The “Support to the Georgian Bar Association” Project is part of Council of Europe and European Union Programmatic Co-operation Framework (PCF) for 2015-2017 Theme II “Ensuring Justice” and is responding to the theme’s objective of “Improving the quality of the profession of lawyers (advocates)”. The project’s specific objectives were to strengthen the self-governing bodies of the GBA including as regards their role in recruitment, training and disciplinary proceedings and to strengthen national training institutions of legal professionals.

For a period of 18 months (January 2015- June 2016), the project provided expertise and capacity building support to Georgian Bar Association and its structures.

The Project ended on 31 July 2016.

The project was designed to respond to institutional strengthening needs of the GBA and contribute to improving the quality of the profession of lawyer. As a result of the project, Georgian lawyers benefit from a Bar which communicates with them regularly, drives the training process and content, offers good quality trainings based on their needs and is able to represent lawyers and protect the freedom of the profession through legal guarantees and successful prosecution of infringements of the rights of lawyers. The profession has a revised Code of Ethics in line with the Council of Europe standards and recommendations. Its application is facilitated by the published and distributed compilation of the GBA Ethics Commission case-law. The Ethics Commission is trained to adopt legally reasoned decisions. The process and content of the admission to the profession is modernized and it offers equal opportunities to candidates in a transparent and objective procedure. The achievement of results was possible due to a combination of Council of Europe expertise, good quality trainings and built-in sustainability measures, applied by the project and appreciated by the beneficiary. The facilitated and long-lasting access to international lawyers organisations - the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe – and bilateral networking opportunities with Bar Associations of other Member States cemented the project’s achievements for sustainability of the action.

For more information please see the following link.